Walter “Walt” Simonson (born September 2, 1946) is an American comic book writer and artist.

Simonson’s breakthrough illustration job was Manhunter, a backup feature in DC’s Detective Comics written by Archie Goodwin. In a 2000 interview, Simonson recalled that “What Manhunter did was to establish me professionally. Before Manhunter, I was one more guy doing comics; after Manhunter, people in the field knew who I was. It’d won a bunch of awards the year that it ran, and after that, I really had no trouble finding work.”

Simonson is best known for his work on Marvel Comics’ The Mighty Thor and X-Factor (the latter being a collaboration with his wife Louise Simonson). Simonson took nearly complete control of Thor, during which he transformed Thor into a frog for three issues and introduced the supporting character Beta Ray Bill, an alien warrior who unexpectedly proved worthy to wield Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir. He started as writer & artist with issue #337 (Nov. 1983) and continued until #367 (May 1986). Sal Buscema became the artist on the title with #368 but Simonson continued to write the book until issue #382 (Aug. 1987).

Simonson became writer of the Fantastic Four with issue #334 (Dec. 1989), and three issues later began penciling and inking as well (#337, coincidentally the same issue number he started as writer & artist of Thor).

Walt Simonson first drew Batman during his acclaimed Manhunter stories with Archie Goodwin; he also drew a handful of issues of both Batman and Detective Comics in the late 70s and early 80s. His last Batman comic art to date was, as far as I can tell, a Batman Black & White story in 1996.

However, he’s found time to do numerous covers and sketches of the Dark Knight over the years in between his legendary runs on The Mighty Thor, Fantastic Four and Orion, to name a few.

Walt Simonson is one of comic’s true originals in my opinion. Though his debt to Kirby is apparent, he takes that influence and, like John Romita Jr., makes his work unmistakeably his own.

tiger can’t talk he’s got shoes to shine, said it’s pretty dry
we could try the guy up on first and fifty-ninth if he’s still alive
the callgirl stalls and lets her voicemail take it
she says hey i ain’t here besides i quit that business
the door was locked so we knocked on the next one
and here’s this guy he’s got a bullet-proof vest on
said you guys look desparate,Ill give you an address
said you guys look gorgeous, dig all that blistex

So my resolution this year is to listen to more music. Yes, I realize this is like a heroin addict resolving to shoot up twice as much as he did the previous wasted year. However… I’m also resolving to listen to more NEW music, which is something I really slacked off on in 2010.

Here is where I tell the world about it…

For the most part, I’m not going to write reviews about this stuff. I’ll just point you guys in the right direction. If I post it, that means I think it’s good. Give it a listen and tell me I’m wrong. I dare you!

First off, I’m already falling behind on the new music thing. The only new album I’ve listened to is Bright Eyes’ new album, “The People’s Key”. This album isn’t out yet (it’s scheduled for release 2/15). Whoops! But you can hear it for free, and in it’s entirety, on NPR, so don’t feel bad.

Okay… so here’s the first track, “Firewall”. Like on most Bright Eyes albums (if not all?) it begins with some spoken word nonsense. This time, the atmospheric composition behind the vocal sample begs for these boys to attempt an entire ambient album. Maybe I’ll suggest that.

Oh yes… and any song that references a Macaw named Jules Verne might automatically end up in my favorites pile.

It was hard to pick which song would represent the album the best. So I just chose my current favorite, “White Flag”, featuring Bashy, Kano, and the Lebanese National Orchestra for Oriental Arabic Music.

Well, it’s hard to be believe, but we’ve already reached the halfway mark of this little journey we are calling “Golden Veins Singles Club.” If you thought the first half was great, just wait until you hear what’s coming up….

Anyway, let’s see what Greg has to say about the two tracks…

“BEING STRANGLED”
I don’t have much to say about “Being Strangled”; it’s mainly Scott’s baby. Micah, another stalwart of the Des Moines music scene sings backing vocals and plays guitar on this one. It’s a great song…it has a palpable overcast day feeling. I like singing someone else’s words and melodies, and I think Scott writes really good lyrics and melody. He comes at it in a different way than I do.“US MERE MORTALS”
One night while screwing around with beats and keyboards, we came up with the foundation for “Us Mere Mortals”. I made the initial beat and put in the harp notes, Ryan added the keyboard trills and Scott basically wrote the other two sections of the song. I tried writing words and melody to the whole song, and we even thought about getting in someone to rap over a part, but ultimately we felt the song worked best with main vocals saved to the very end. Scott also added in the various spoken-word samples. Hopefully the cumulative effect of these elements makes up, at least in some part, for the lack of rapping.

Also included with this single is a brutal remix by our very own Matt Bad, as well as fantastic artwork by Michelle Holley.

Unfortunately, in 1965, when he was to finish the final issue of 8 Man, he was arrested for possessing a handgun (he had contemplated suicide). With Kuwata in jail, co-creator Hirai got other manga artists to finish the final issue, but wasn’t satisfied with it. It was published in a manga magazine, but has never before been reprinted.

Nevertheless, Kuwata, released from prison shortly thereafter, continued his manga work well into the 1970s, but also ran into depression and alcoholism. In 1977, he had an epiphany and converted to Buddhism. He has since done beautiful art books about the life of Buddha. He also occasionally got back into manga work, and in 1992, he agreed to do his own version of the final issue of 8 Man, upon being asked by co-creator/friend Kazumasa Hirai.

Kuwata’s Batman work was published in Japan around the time of the huge hit TV show; like most manga adaptations of American superhero comics, its appeal seems to have been somewhat limited to the Japanese audience, and was largely unknown in the States until the publication of a compilation from a couple years ago, entitled Bat-Manga.

Bat-Manga was curated by Chip Kidd, noted graphic designer, author and Batman fan. There was a bit of a kerfluffle when the book was published because of the absence of a credit for Kuwata on the cover. While this was almost definitely an oversight, it remains an unfortunate error. Nevertheless, on its release, Kuwata finally received recognition for his work on the character; Grant Morrison even introduced the Kuwata characters Lord Death Man and Professor Gorilla to DC continuity in the initial Japan-centric arc of his Batman Inc. series.